February 28, 2005 (Day 52)

I thought I was getting confinement last Saturday, since the Sir read out my name for confinees the night before. That was a truly demoralizing moment, for it meant one more day of your life that the Army has taken away from you.

So imagine what I felt, when I found out that the Sir had made a mistake, and I wasn't supposed to be confined after all......20 minutes before the whole company was due to board the fastcraft back to civilisation.

Oh yes, first it was elation, then it was downright panic, as I rushed to dress and pack up, hoping I won't drag back my platoon by being late. They were pretty pissed about it too, but firstly, it wasn't entirely my fault, and secondly, I could hardly care less about what those fucktards think anymore anyway. Why should I care about what they feel, when they don't care about what I feel at all?

I've lived the last 2 years believeing that the best kind of friends, those friends that you can count upon to soothe your soul when you've had too much of life, are the ditzy, airheaded girls who are not smart enough to be truly nasty. I just never expected to prove this theory to be correct, right here in Pulau Tekong. For the comapny I keep in Tekong are all guys with 'A' Levels pedigree......and either they turn out to be worse versions of JC, or worse still, worse versions of the bullies of my secondary school days. Okay, that's tarring everyone with the same brush, and some of them definitely do not deserve such a scathing label. But still, most of them are less hospitable to me than I would have liked, although admittedly I cold be a little more amenable to them as well. But it's just that......well, when you put a lot of pressure on someone, you can't expect him not to retaliate, can you? The wrost thing is, whever I have had enough of this fucked-up life, and called those of my friends who can be considered quite smart, their response tends to be a varaiation of "Stop whining and acting like a wimp, and take it like a man". really demoralizing. And while my more airheaded girls have become increasingly hard to reach, whenver I do manage to contact them, their response tends to be varaiations of, "Aw, just bear with it, it's only so long before it'll all be over. Be strong, okay?"

Just about the same meaning, but such differing impacy. The latter sounds so much more morale-boosting than the former, and how it shows that whoever said it cares about you too. There's something to be said for being not so smart after all.

I have realised that I haven't been updating this diary as often as I would have lifed, and it is because of a sad combination of factors. Either I have had no time to do so, thanks to the sergeants annoying vigilance, ot I have become so tired, , so uncaring of anything at all, that I could not make the effort to write anything, again thanks to the sergeants' efforts at breaking us down. I also realised that the general mood of what I had been writing these days have reverted to the world-weary, deflated tone that I started out with when I started my first blog. Man, it's been a while, and yet it seems like it was just yesterday......well. Let's just say that all the Army has taught me isL I'm no soldier. I cannot take pressure as well as everybody else, and if that makes me a wealking, there's nothing I can do about that, you know? That's me, like it or not, and you can take it or leave it for all I care. I'm someone who works better with gentle encouragement than prodding pressure, and since the Army is all about pressure, no surprise I perform very poorly in such an environment indeed. But that's a story for another time.

Right now though, I've got to get back to reality. Which, in my case, happens to be the business of being a recruit in Pulau Tekong BMTC School 2. And which, at this instant, involves cleaning our the devillishly hard to clean AR-15 assault rifle, a thankless task which could take hours to complete.

Stupid rifle.